Khalim gave a hard smile. ‘Actually, yes, perhaps you should. After all, most women find it a pleasure to be in my company.’
‘But, presumably, they haven’t been manipulated into it, like I have?’
Khalim stilled. ‘Are you intendi
ng to make a scene in the middle of the foyer?’
‘You classify giving a legitimate opinion as making a scene?’ Rose smiled. ‘What spineless women you must have known in the past, Khalim!’
And looking at the feisty sparkle which was making her blue eyes shine like sapphires, Khalim was inclined to agree with her. ‘Shall we go upstairs?’ he asked pleasantly.
The words came blurting out before she could stop them. ‘Why, so that you can seduce me?’
The black eyes narrowed, but then his mouth curved in a slow, speculative smile. ‘Is that what you would like, then, sweet Rose?’
And, to Rose’s horror, that smile had the most extraordinary effect on her. She found her skin warming under that unmistakable look of approbation, as if she had found herself beneath the gentle heat of a spring sun. Her heart began to patter out an erratic little dance and little shivers of sensation skittered all the way down her spine.
With a supreme effort, she said firmly, ‘No, what I would like is to have been given some choice in taking this job!’
‘I’m sure you were perfectly free to turn it down.’ His shrug was disarming, but the steely intent behind his words remained intact.
‘Yes, that would have gone down very well with my boss, wouldn’t it? Sorry, but I don’t want to take this highly lucrative contract, because…’
‘Because?’ he questioned so silkily that the hairs on the back of her neck began to prickle, and she stared at him indignantly.
‘Because a man who is capable of such underhand—’
But her words were waylaid by long, olive-coloured fingers being placed on her arm. She could feel their gentle caress through the thin silk of her suit jacket, and at that moment felt as helpless as a rabbit caught in the glaring headlights of an oncoming car.
‘Let us continue this discussion upstairs,’ he instructed smoothly. ‘I am not certain that I am going to like what I am about to hear—and, if that is the case, then I most assuredly do not wish for all the staff and guests of the Granchester to be privy to it.’
Rose opened her mouth to protest, then closed it again. What was the point? She was here to do business, after all. ‘Will Philip be accompanying us?’
Dark eyebrows were raised in mocking query. ‘Ah! Once again you have need of a chaperon do you, Rose?’
Her own look mocked him back. ‘Of course not! I’m a professional—and our business will be conducted on just that footing. I know that I can rely on you to abide by that, can’t I, Khalim?’
Her attempt to dominate made him ache unbearably, and Khalim felt the slow pull of sexual excitement. What untold pleasure it would give him to subjugate her fiery insurrection!
‘A word of warning, Rose,’ he murmured. ‘A Marabanesh is master of his own destiny. Rely on nothing and you shall not be disappointed.’ He turned his dark head. ‘Come, Philip,’ he drawled. ‘The lady requests your company.’
Philip Caprice seemed slightly bemused by the interchange. ‘I’m honoured,’ he replied.
But Rose could barely think straight. All the way up in the lift, Khalim’s words kept swimming seductively around in her head. Master of his own destiny. Why should that thrill her so unspeakably? Because the quiet Englishmen of her acquaintance would never have come out with such a passionate and poetic phrase?
His suite was something outside Rose’s experience, even though her work had taken her to plenty of glamorous places in her time. But this was something else! She looked around in wonder. It was absolutely vast—why, she could imagine two football teams feeling perfectly at home here! And it was furnished with sumptuous understatement.
She didn’t know quite what she had expected—Middle-Eastern opulence, she supposed, with golden swathes of material, and mosaics and richly embroidered cushions scattered on the floor, perhaps even a water-pipe or two!
And she couldn’t have got it more wrong, because Khalim’s suite was so very English. Comfort, with a slight modern edge to it; it was thickly carpeted in soft pale cream with three enormous sofas coloured blood-red. On the wall hung some magnificent modern paintings—huge canvases whose abstract shapes took the mind on surprising journeys.
But it was the view which was the most stunning thing the suite had to offer—because along the entire length of the room ran floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking London’s most famous park. She gazed down, thinking that it was so unexpected to see a great sward of green right bang in the middle of a bustling city.
And when she looked up again, it was to find Khalim watching her.
‘You like it,’ he observed, and the pleasure in his voice was unmistakable.
‘It’s beautiful,’ she said simply. ‘Absolutely beautiful.’